Just finished Make Your Own Damn Movie by Lloyd Kaufman and other folks. It's a good read, even if you aren't intending to make a movie. It certainly gave me a much greater appreciation of the work that goes into even the crappiest movies. Plus, Kaufman's rather bitter rants about the Corporate Monsters doing what they can to snuff out truly independent filmmaking are interesting as most of the "independent" films that get released are processed through some tentacle of a Corporate Monster. Not like the old days when any whack-a-noodle with enough energy could hustle local theaters to show some brokendown piece of crap they made. And, yes, I'm pointing a finger at Al Adamson, among others.

Still, politics aside, worth reading if what goes on behind the camera and/or Troma is your cup of bile.

"Film Art: An Aintroduction": This is the basic textbook they give you for any Freshman Film 101 class. Figure picking up a used copy off a buddy is cheaper than going to film school.

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"The basic plot is that Donna Speir and Hope Marie Carlton, the two undercover DEA agent Playboy Playmates from the last movie, are still running around in jungle shorts, cowboy boots and spaghetti strap T-shirts, firing their machine guns at drug smugglers, Filipino communist guerrillas, and corrupt federal agents while their two friends, Lisa London and Miss May 1984 Patty Duffek, lounge around the pool a lot and talk on speaker phones that look like fax machines."-Joe Bob on SAVAGE BEACH

"Film Art: An Aintroduction": This is the basic textbook they give you for any Freshman Film 101 class. Figure picking up a used copy off a buddy is cheaper than going to film school.

Rev, I think it's safe to say that you probably won't find anything in there that you haven't already taught yourself. I've read your reviews; you could teach a class on cinema analysis.

But then we would never get to see the Rev. in a black turtleneck and poorly-informed mustache! The cure would be worse than the disease!

You can insult me all you want but leave my mustache out of it!

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"The basic plot is that Donna Speir and Hope Marie Carlton, the two undercover DEA agent Playboy Playmates from the last movie, are still running around in jungle shorts, cowboy boots and spaghetti strap T-shirts, firing their machine guns at drug smugglers, Filipino communist guerrillas, and corrupt federal agents while their two friends, Lisa London and Miss May 1984 Patty Duffek, lounge around the pool a lot and talk on speaker phones that look like fax machines."-Joe Bob on SAVAGE BEACH

My father who played trumpet in the United States Navy Construction Battalion Band during the War would have appreciated someone's answer to a question on someone's history test.

Also . . .

Carol McCleary'sThe Formula for Murder3rd in the Nellie Bly series

When Nellie's BFF is pulled out of the Thames and is declared a suicide, she travels to London to investigate and discovers that not all is as it seems. But, with the help of Oscar Wilde, H. G. Wells, and Conan Doyle, who she meets over there, she sets things right. And when Nellie is captured by the villains, "Here come the Marines!" or their English equivalent--Doyle, Wells, and Wilde--to the rescue.

The book is illustrated with photos of people, places, and things, and two of the photos show how much Wells and Doyle looked alike. Doyle was a much bigger man than Wells, but they look enough like to be related to each other.

The Mammoth Book of Weird But Trueedited by Geoff Tibballs

Not as funny as his book on the best of British humor, but there are still alot of laughs in it.

Stephen Gallagher'sThe Bedlam DetectiveWhether this is the start of a series or only an one-off. It's his 16th book of fiction.

2 dead schoolgirlsa piece of film that may or may not show what happened.a man who may or may not be mad.a house that may or may not be haunted.a sinister doctor.a failed scientific expedition to the Amazon.a woman who may be more than she seemsa moor that may or may not have a monster on it.and the man sent down from London to investigate it all.

Tarquin Hall'sThe Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken3rd in the Vish Puri mystery seriesAn ex-pat Englishman living in India, he has also written 3 non-fiction books.

When the father of the captain of the visting Pakistani cricket team is poisoned at a banquet, it is up to our hero to discover who did what to whom, and discovers secrets going back almost 70 years to the time that the Indian subcontinent was partitioned into India and East and West Pakistan. Our hero also discovers corrupt politicans, diamond smugglers, high-stake gamblers, incompetent policement, moustache thiefs, professional killers, women with old agendas, and both friends and foes in both India and Pakistan.

Next time: Past and Present. Progression and Pregression. Similiarities and Differences.

I just finished a parallel reading of Julius Caesar's COMMENTARIES ON THE GALLIC WARS with Colleen McCullough's CAESAR: LET THE DICE FLY!, a novelized version that covers both the latter half of the Gallic Wars and the beginning of the Civic Wars, concluding with the death of Pompey the Great. It is interesting to see how closely McCullough followed the history of the times, and where she diverged from the written accounts.

Ye-es!But that is for later.As I said before, as long as a novel that takes place in the past, is not too anachronistic, it can be used as a guide to measure how things have changed or not changed, as the case maybe. As an example of what I mean, here is Anne Perry's "Bluegate Fields," which is set in 1876.

Similiarties to now1. The more lurid the trial. The greater the attendance. Still true today.

2. People don't like procurers. Still true today.

3. Beauty is a curse. "It is a curse I tell ya. A curse!" Not that I'd know, as I have always looked like something that crawled out from beneath the proverbial rock. But for a boy who is beautiful, he is either . . .

(a) conceited(b) dumb as a rock. Because someone who is beautiful cannot have a brain.(c) automatically gay.(d) all of the above.

Still true today.

4. To end child prostitute, alter the social climate. Never get ride of it altogether, but might reduce it massively. Still true today.

That's what the Europeans did, when they start taking it seriously. Unfortunately, while they reduced it in Europe, they pushed it into the more poverty stricken areas of Asia. But actions are being taken to end it there, as well.

5. Bath time is erotic time. Still true today. Maybe because it nearly always comes across as something slightly illicit to me. 1876: A 16-year-old boy in the tub with a man who is at least a decade older. Today: an underaged boy scout in the bath with a woman who is much, much older than him.

1. A child alone, under 18, can live alone in their own apartment. For the most part, not true today.

2. Male child prostitution is worst than female child prostitution. Not true today, as we have rid ourselves, for the most part, from that double standard.

3. Homosexual = pervert1876: majority opinionToday: minority opinion

4. The gay or bisexual teen today vs. the gay or bisexual teen in 1876I do not want to say that being a gay or bisexual teen today is easy. It is not, but, for the most part, as long as it is done in private, consensual, and age appropriate, it is legal. In 1876, it did not matter whether it was done in private, consensual, or age appropriate, as anything of that type was illegal.

5. Hanging 16s and under.You can't do that today. You can't even sentence a criminal under 18 to the death penalty, even if they commit a capital offense, because, as far as I know, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that to be cruel and unusual.

Next time: Just names, titles, recommendations, and a little "Star Wars."

Danny Peary's "Cult Movies 2: Fifty More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful."

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"The basic plot is that Donna Speir and Hope Marie Carlton, the two undercover DEA agent Playboy Playmates from the last movie, are still running around in jungle shorts, cowboy boots and spaghetti strap T-shirts, firing their machine guns at drug smugglers, Filipino communist guerrillas, and corrupt federal agents while their two friends, Lisa London and Miss May 1984 Patty Duffek, lounge around the pool a lot and talk on speaker phones that look like fax machines."-Joe Bob on SAVAGE BEACH

I've finished two books by James Hadley Chase: No Orchids For Miss Blandish and Miss Callaghan Comes to Grief. I'm reading another one of his now.

Miss Blandish was the novel used for the basis of The Grissom Gang, which RC posted a video clip from in another thread.

Chase's style is very straightforward and almost script-like, but the stories he spins--mercy, they are brutal and twisted in ways I hadn't even thought of. The ones I've read and am reading are are 30s and 40s era crime novels with vice, gangsters, Tommy guns, sassy dames and enough blood and violence to out-do the biggest gorefests except maybe Dead Alive. Fast, raw and exciting stuff that you don't question until you've finished them.

So far, No Orchids For Miss Blandish is his masterwork. It is Faulkner-esque in how the characters all have their own story arcs, but without Faulkner's verbal projectile vomiting or literary airs. (Yes, I've read a good 8 or more Faulkner novels and about 15 of his shorter works, and while I appreciate his "art", it doesn't mean I don't think the man could have used some hardcore editing.)

Just started "House of Suns" by Alastair Reynolds. It's science fiction novel that is shaping up to be a fascinating read. Set wayyy in a starfaring future, an incredibly rich woman 'split' herself into dozens of male and female clones in order to observe humanity's development over the millenia. They gather every ten thousand years to pool their knowledge. It's my first Alastair Reynolds novel; I'm normally into Iain Banks and Peter Hamilton these days.

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"Many others since have tried & failed at making a watchable parasite slug movie" - LilCerberus